


The Grounds of Hope

by LadyCara



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Explicit Sex, F/M, Introspection, Post-Episode AU: s02e13 Doomsday, Post-Time War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 06:29:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9166075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyCara/pseuds/LadyCara
Summary: When the stars are going out in another universe, Rose Tyler crosses dimensions in order to save all of reality. Her mission takes an unexpected turn when she runs into a Doctor so lost that he needs her help more than she needs his.A crossover with the movie "Elizabeth", cross-posted to Teaspoon and my LJ.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'ed by the wonderful jer832, whose comments inspired one of the most important scenes in this fic.

The first time he sees her, he almost doesn’t.

The TARDIS materialises on Krakatoa, and he stumbles into the first human being since the Time War. He tells the Dutch artists he meets in the jungle that Krakatoa is not the best place for sketching at the moment and convinces him to take the next ship to Sumatra, even if he himself doesn’t mind to live out his last moments here.

Burning…

It fits, he thinks, until he realises what it will do to the TARDIS. He certainly isn’t going to let his ship burn. Not after…

He doesn’t finish the thought.

He starts the dematerialisation sequence and looks at one of the monitors on the console, even if the chances for incoming Dalek ships on Krakatoa are slim, but old habits die hard. As, to his misfortune, does he.

Every conscious minute he wishes he had burnt as well, as he deserves.

But he is here, and he looks at the monitor, and there she is. Appeared out of nowhere. A human female in her early twenties, blue leather jacket, something that looks like a weapon slung over her shoulder, and certainly not from this time.

When she sees the TARDIS, the expression on her face changes. Her eyes light up with surprise, recognition, relief and something he tentatively identifies as hope, an emotion he hasn’t seen for a very long time. It almost makes him stop the dematerialisation sequence.

Almost.

He certainly is the last person in the universe to raise hope in anyone. During the last decades, all he has done is fail. Fail that girl on the spaceship, fail the people on the planets he couldn’t save from the Daleks, fail his own people. He hasn’t even managed to die properly.

For a second he wonders who she is, if he should have recognised her, but he doesn’t remember her. He spends another second wondering if she will be stranded if he leaves her here, but dismisses the thought. She apparently has come here for a reason, and that means she has a way to leave again. She doesn’t need him.

Then he hits the last button, and the TARDIS dematerialises.

 

The second time he is standing in a queue, waiting to board the Titanic. He has left the TARDIS in a small alley in one of the seedier parts of Southampton and obtained a ticket by persuading a family to take the next ship. He still can manipulate people if he wants to. His seventh incarnation would have been proud.

He calls himself the Doctor, but that’s not what he really is. Coward. Liar. Murderer. Names that would fit him much better. The Master would be laughing his head off if he knew what he has done. In the end, his old foe has been right. He’s nothing more than a hypocrite.

The silence in his head is deafening, and he doesn’t think he can bear it much longer.

He knows what boarding the Titanic means, but he also knows he won’t fight it. It will be a quiet death. For him at least. He tries to think not too closely about leaving the TARDIS behind, but gathering dust in an alley in Southampton is better than ending up at the bottom of the Atlantic or burning on Krakatoa.

The queue is getting shorter, but it will still take him some time to board. They really take it seriously here with the delousing, at least if one doesn’t have access to the first class. But he has time, too much time. Time he doesn’t want. The departure can’t come soon enough for him. Even though it won’t be long now. In less than two hours the ship will leave the harbour, and his last journey will begin.

Then she is suddenly there, takes his hand and drags him away from the queue to an abandoned storage house, not far from where he left the TARDIS.

He doesn’t fight her. He has stopped fighting the second he used the Moment and killed his people.

When she finally speaks, her words shake him to the bone.

“You didn’t think the TARDIS brought you here so you could take the easy way out, did you?”

Suddenly he is angry. He hasn’t been angry for a long time. Has simply stopped being anything. Except being tired of his existence.

“And who do you think you are, that you know what the TARDIS wants?” he asks derisively. “You’re just a human.”

Her expression changes quickly, almost too quickly to follow, but he could swear he has seen something like a secret smile on her face before she turns serious again.

“I can’t tell you, and you know that, Doctor,” she says.

He was right the first time he saw her. She knows him, but he doesn’t know her, and that can only mean she is from his future.

A future he doesn’t have, doesn’t deserve, doesn’t want, a future that will cease to exist in a few days.

“I haven’t time for this,” he says. It’s a lie, of course.

She sees right through it.

“But apparently you have time to figure out creative ways to get yourself killed without actually killing yourself, coward that you are.”

Something about her demeanour tells him that the offense is deliberate, designed to provoke a reaction out of him. He chooses to ignore it.

She shakes her head, and looks at him again. “You know what? I haven’t time for this either. I’m looking for a future you, because I need his help, but your TARDIS keeps intercepting my jumps because she’s worried about you.”

“And how would you know that?”

“I already told you that I can’t tell you, Doctor.” Then a touch of steel comes into her voice. “What I can tell you, however, is that the TARDIS brought you here to stop the group of Taddims that are already forming a hive in this city. You know what will happen if they start breeding.”

“Not my problem.”

He never sees the slap coming, and it _hurts_.

The look of betrayal in her eyes is worse.

“Right,” she says, then turns around and vanishes into the storage house.

For some reason there is a strong urge to follow her, but he ignores it. He boards the Titanic less than ten minutes before the ship leaves Southampton, then tries to drink himself into a stupor.

Not that it works.

What is worse, for some reason her face keeps appearing in his mind, no matter how much he tries to forget her.

When the iceberg finally hits the ship he quickly comes to the conclusion that death in the ice cold Atlantic leaves a lot to be desired. For more than four hours he clings to the iceberg, until the TARDIS materialises in front of him.

He catches a cold, and his ship is not half smug about it.

 

When she doesn’t show up in Dallas, he is almost disappointed.

 

On a whim he sets the navigation controls to randomize, and his stubborn time ship gladly takes the opportunity. She lands in Elizabethan England and kicks him out in the vicinity of one of the numerous royal palaces, _sans_ leather jacket, psychic paper, and sonic screwdriver, then closes the doors and refuses to let him inside again.

 

He is not sure if it is a cosmic joke that he looks like a traitor this time around.

 

Two days later the Doctor has come to the conclusion that looking like His Grace Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, has its advantages, not the least of them that he hasn’t even needed his psychic paper and an invented cover story to get into the palace. And even if the man is going to betray his queen in the future, right now he is the most powerful man in England; therefore he has permanent quarters in the palace, and, apparently, a stack of clothes.

He is also, thankfully, absent at the moment.

 

Once again Rose Tyler materialises in the prime universe, this time on a clearing in a cold and misty forest. For a few seconds she just stands there, trying to get over the dizziness that comes with crossing from one universe into the other. Then she checks her equipment and only barely suppresses a groan. The circuits of the dimension cannon are fried. She just hopes that she has either found the Doctor or that she’ll at least be able to acquire the necessary parts to repair the cannon, otherwise she is stuck here, and that is something she really can’t afford.

It has taken the scientists in Pete’s World months to get the dimension cannon to work, and time is almost up. She needs the Doctor, her version of him, that is, but lately the TARDIS has been intercepting her jumps more often than not. She is fairly certain what the ship is up to, and normally she wouldn’t mind, but Pete’s World is running out of time.

Then she discovers the TARDIS and her face lights up, but as soon as she touches the wood she knows that once again she won’t find the Doctor she is looking for, but the one the TARDIS has decided needs her help. She doesn’t try her key. It hasn’t worked last time, and she is certain it won’t work this time as well. She does, however, ask the TARDIS for a few spare parts, but even if the ship lets her into the console room all she gets is the wallet with the Doctor’s psychic paper and a dress she tentatively identifies as from sixteenth century Earth. No chance of acquiring the necessary parts somewhere else, then.

She closes her eyes and leans against one of the coral struts for a moment, only to receive an apologetic, yet decisive hum, along with the feeling that there is more going on here than just a Time Lord fresh out of the Time War who is intent on getting himself killed.

Great. Just what she needs. Universe at the brink of destruction, damaged dimension cannon, suicidal Time Lord, and a yet unknown problem most likely involving aliens.

As soon as she enters the palace she realises that she has overlooked something. The bond between the Doctor and her had been damaged when she got stuck in the other universe, and now the link is trying to reassert itself. The last time the bond had been in jeopardy, they had to fight the urge to shag each other senseless in public, in a society that even frowned upon holding hands, and she suspects that this time it will be the same. She had barely noticed last time, but the pull is already getting stronger, and eventually the Doctor will feel it, too.  But it is much too early for him, and she doesn’t even want to think about the results of him initiating the bond prematurely.

She groans in frustration.

 

Almost two weeks later the TARDIS has still not let him back in. He has tried basically everything to convince her, to no avail, but he hasn’t resorted to grovelling. Yet.

He spends his days in the hall, killing time and trying to ignore the feeling that there is something going on here beneath the everyday intrigues that needs investigating. He simply doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore.

On the evening of the twelfth day he looks up from his goblet of wine and there she is, the woman who has been following him around. There’s no mistaking her, even if this time she is wearing period clothing, not that blue leather jacket she’d worn the first couple of times.

The nobleman sitting to his left follows his glance.

“Lady Rose Tyler,” he says. “She’s recently become one of Her Majesty’s ladies. She’s exquisite, isn’t she?”

He has to admit that the other man is right, even if he keeps his opinion to himself and his features expressionless.

“I certainly wouldn’t mind her visiting my bedchamber at night,” the man on his right throws in with a dirty grin.

Suddenly a wave of possessiveness hits him, and he can barely resist glaring at the other man, even if he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t even know her; just that she is a bloody nuisance who keeps turning up like a bad penny, and he is going to find out why.

At least now he has a name to go with the face.

 

On her second evening since she’d gotten stuck in the 16th century, Rose enters the hall for the first time, and there he is.

One look at him, and she knows that he is the Doctor, not some sixteenth century doppelganger, despite the period clothing, but at her whispered inquiry one of the other girls in Queen Elizabeth’s service tells her that he is the Duke of Norfolk. She frowns. A couple of years ago she found a book about Queen Elizabeth’s reign in the TARDIS library, and this is not what she remembers having read. It’s November 1569, so Thomas Howard should be imprisoned in the Tower of London for scheming to marry Mary Stuart. And yet the Doctor is pretending to be him without anyone wondering about that.

There is definitely something going on here, and she is going to find out what it is. It would be more fun with the Doctor, but she is fairly certain he’ll turn her down again, even with the bond pulling him towards her. And even though telling him who she is might show him that he still has a future, she knows that he has to take the first step into it on his own. All she can do is hold his hand in the meantime — and maybe give him a little push into the right direction.

 

Another three days and as many sleepless nights later, during which he has been completely unable to get her out of his head, he finally catches her alone in an empty corridor.

He snatches her arm and presses her against the wall, fixing her there. “What are you doing here?”

He doesn’t explain what exactly he means by ‘here’, but the unsurprised expression on her face tells him that she understands him anyway.

She looks up at him, completely unfazed by his behaviour. “Ask your TARDIS why she thought it necessary to pull me here. I’d already be gone if this time her interference hadn’t short-circuited my means of transport. So if you could help me out with a few spare parts I’ll be gone as soon as possible.”

For some strange reason her being gone is not what he wants. What he wants is to open the laces of the dress she is wearing, revealing her to him inch by inch, until she is standing in front of him wearing nothing at all. Or maybe he’d rip the dress apart, he’s not picky. There is something about her that makes him want to possess her, in every possible way.

He doesn’t do anything, though, just keeps staring at her.

She stares right back at him, then grins suddenly, her tongue sticking out between her teeth. For a moment he wonders what else that clever tongue can do, then gets his wandering mind out of the gutter and back under control.

“She kicked you out, right?” she interrupts his thoughts, still grinning.

He’d rather invite a Sontaran for breakfast than admit that she is right, but she sees right through him and bursts out laughing.

“That’s not funny,” he says, and she laughs harder.

“It is, a bit,” she gives back, still laughing, then sobers up. “Have you noticed something being wrong with the timelines lately?” she asks.

He frowns, then shakes his head. He hasn’t been paying much attention to his surroundings, but something being wrong with the timelines always stands out enough to catch his interest even if he’s trying to ignore the universe at large and hoping to maybe get ignored in return. Not that he has ever had any success with that.

“Why do you ask?” he asks, against his better judgement.

“Because the Duke of Norfolk should currently be imprisoned in the Tower, and yet nobody wonders why you are here. Well, except maybe the Queen. She keeps glancing at you strangely.”

“Clever woman,” he gives back as nonchalantly as he can manage. Which is very, and he is fairly certain that he would have persuaded any other person with his act.

However, the woman in front of him gives him a look that clearly tells him that he is not going to fool her, and that there is another slap looming in his future if he keeps this behaviour up. Still, he refuses to surrender so easily and just looks back at her evenly.

Her eyes bore into his for an endless moment, then she removes his hand still holding her arm, straightens and walks away from him.

 

She wants to scream and hit something, preferably him over his head. Or maybe knocking her own head against one of the heavy oak doors nearby would do. His behaviour would be driving her crazy even without the bond thrown into the mix, but this is just the icing of the cake.

He had looked ready to take her, right there in that relatively empty corner of the palace, and she had seriously contemplated letting him. She has missed him so much, and even if he’s not the Doctor she is looking for, he is the one she fell for first, the one who fell for her. Even if it’s much too early for him, the bond is drawing her in, and fighting it is becoming harder and harder.

She presses her fingernails into her palms, in a probably futile attempt to clear her head. She hopes she hasn’t made the wrong decision leaving him. Normally he loves to solve a riddle, preferably with an audience; but she has simply walked away from him while having only part of the answer. She hopes that intrigues him enough to help her figure it out.

Or maybe not, she thinks when she sneaks back into the bedchamber she shares with another one of Elizabeth’s ladies, after spending another three lonely hours looking for whatever alien problem the TARDIS has decided needs to be solved.

She tosses and turns for another two hours, fighting the urge to find him, to talk to him, to touch him, to have him touch her where she so desperately needs to be touched, then sleep finally claims her.

 

When she enters the hall the next evening, he is leaning against the wall next to the entrance as if he just has been observing the crowd in front of him, but in reality he is waiting for no one but her. He can’t get her out of his head. Somehow he is drawn to her, like a moth to a flame, and for a moment he wonders if her fire will burn him for life the next time he touches her.

“Ce’ona’us,” he says. “Could be Garonas, but the Ce’ona’us are more likely.”

She doesn’t even stop, just gestures inconspicuously at the doorway leading to the kitchens, then spreads her fingers.

He waits another two minutes, then leaves the hall. He is fairly certain she only meant the general direction, not the kitchens themselves, crowded as they are. After a moment a thought occurs to him, and he heads for the cellar.

She shows up in the storage area three minutes after him, giving him a brilliant smile, and for some reason he suddenly feels lighter than only seconds before.

“Sorry,” she apologises. “I didn’t want to ignore you in the hall, but apparently that corridor was not as empty as I thought, and someone told Elizabeth that they had seen us together.”

She looks away from him and bites her lip, and he wonders if her thoughts had gone into the same direction as his in that corridor. Eventually he realises she is still talking and once again drags his mind out of the gutter and back to her words.

“-still remember that you, or rather the Duke of Norfolk, are not exactly Elizabeth’s most loyal subject. Her ladies have been keeping an eye on me ever since.”

“Like I said, clever woman,” he answers.

She raises an eyebrow, but otherwise ignores the comment. Instead she asks, “And what are we going to do about the Ce’ona’us? Or maybe the Garonas?”

She only stumbles slightly at the first name, he notes. He has to admit that he is impressed. Most people don’t get the click consonants right the first time.

That doesn’t mean, however, that he is going to help her.

“I don’t do that sort of thing anymore.”

As if someone has flipped a switch, the light in her eyes goes out. She takes a breath, and what she says next shakes him to the core.

“I was wrong about you. Whoever you are, you are definitely not the Doctor.”

She turns on her heel and walks away, not even fast, but she is already out of the door when he finally manages to shake the paralysis that suddenly has befallen him, only for it to be replaced by white-hot fury and something else he can’t quite place.

When he enters the hall she is already leaving it. He tries to cross the hall as quickly as possible, his scowl telling everyone standing in his path to move out of the way as fast as they can, but apparently Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s master spy, hasn’t received the memo. After exchanging a few barbs with the other man, he finally manages to leave the hall, but she is nowhere in sight.

He enters corridor after corridor at random, until he eventually catches her in the hallway leading to his quarters. He snatches her arm and presses her against the wall, staring into eyes that look at him evenly, even if he is almost certain there is something else simmering under the calm surface, waiting to boil over.

“Take it back,” he demands.

 

Rose looks at him, and what she sees isn’t the man who always tries to help, no matter the cost, not the man who always tries to do the right thing, not the man who feels joy at showing the wonders of the universe to his companion. What she sees is a man who is tormented by all those things he had to do for the sake of the universe and who has lost himself completely in the process, and as much as it pains her, if she wants her Doctor back, she has to stay strong now.

“No.”

He strengthens his grip on her arms, almost bruising her.

“Take it back,” he repeats, and she can hear the barely suppressed fury in his voice.

“No. Because it is true. You’re not the Doctor. The Doctor wouldn’t have ignored those Taddims in Southampton. He would have tried to convince them to leave the planet. The Doctor would have tried to find out what else was going on in Dallas apart from the obvious-”

“What else was going on in Dallas?” he interrupts her, clearly surprised, but she ignores him.

“…and the Doctor would have tried to find out what exactly is going on here, instead of nursing his self-pity and drowning his actions in too much wine.”

Once again she is offending him intentionally. She has to. Everything else she has tried has failed, and now she needs to push him beyond his breaking point, for his sake. When he is himself again, he’ll understand why she had to do it and forgive her this cruelty. She just hopes that his self-control is still strong enough to stop him from hitting her; she doesn’t want to think what it would do to his already fragile state of mind to realise that he laid hands on her. She would forgive him, of course, but he would never forgive himself.

He presses her against the wall even harder, and this time she is certain his fingers will leave bruises. He is wandering along the edge of an abyss, and even if she knows the demons that are lurking in the deepest corners of his soul she has never before seen so much madness in his eyes.

She raises her chin, refusing to be intimidated by his behaviour, and adds another deliberate insult. “Like I said, you’re nothing more than a coward.”

His pupils contract and he stares at her for a millisecond, then he explodes.

“You don’t know anything about me! You have no idea what I’ve done! I’ve so much blood on my hands no stupid ape blundering about on this backwater planet could ever imagine, so don’t try to tell me what I would or wouldn’t do.”

He has barely finished his sentence when he loosens his grip on her arms, as if her bare skin is burning him. He takes a step back and looks at his hands as if he can see the blood staining them, then turns towards his chamber, but she quickly reaches for his hands. He tries to free himself, but she refuses to let him go.

“Doctor, look at me,” she says, gently.

For a moment he looks as if he wants to continue arguing, but then his resistance crumbles. Gone are the cavalier façade he had first adopted, the fury and the madness, and finally she can see the broken man under his protective layers.

 

Anger and rage drain from his body, and he feels so exhausted he could collapse in front of her. The only thing keeping him upright is the feeling of her hands holding his, as if she is somehow lending him strength.

He looks at her, and to his immense relief realises that the light he had snuffed out earlier is back in her eyes.

“Why?” he asks.

Why are you still here? Why are you still talking to me? Why are you trying to help me? There’s an entire universe of ‘whys’ he wants to ask, but he seems to be unable to voice a single question.

“Because I want to,” she replies, as if she is reading his thoughts.

He can see that there is more she isn’t saying, but just this once, he lets it slide.

“But…” he says, swallowing the thought that he’s not worth it.

Once again she knows what he hasn’t said.

“You’re not worth it?” she asks. “That’s bollocks, Doctor, and you know it. Because without you, the universe would have been destroyed. I, on the other hand, killed about half a million hostile aliens with a flick of my hand, and unlike you it wasn’t to save the universe. It was to save you.”

“But why?” he asks, incredulously.

“Because I love you.”

And suddenly he is kissing her, or maybe she is kissing him, but it doesn’t matter who started it, because it feels _right_ , so absolutely right like nothing has felt since the beginning of the Time War, or maybe since _ever_.

 

For a moment he releases her and simply takes her in, this woman who somehow has rekindled a spark of life in him, a tiny flicker he doesn’t dare to touch for fear of dousing it again. Then yet another wave of possessiveness hits him, and he realises that he needs more, needs to _feel_ , needs _her_.

His lips crash down on hers, and his tongue invades her mouth, mapping the unknown area that feels familiar nonetheless. Her tongue glides against his in languorous strokes, a wordless invitation, and he gladly takes the offer.

He lets his hands wander over her body, suddenly no longer afraid to stain her with his touch. He follows the soft curve from her clavicle to the swell of her breasts, and she gasps slightly. Then he runs his thumbs over her nipples, and even if they are covered by several layers of fabric he can feel them straining against her dress. He repeats the motion, and this time she moans. Loudly.

Pleased with his success he considers exploring other parts of her body, when he suddenly realises that her fingers have found a way into those ridiculous trousers and she is firmly stroking his growing erection. He groans, and he can feel her lips curving up in a smile.

For a moment he considers taking her right here, but then a semblance of sanity returns to him. He wants to explore her body, find out how she feels when she comes around him, and he can’t do that during a frantic coupling in an empty corridor.

“My chamber,” he rasps, voice heavy with passion.

He takes her hand and drags her into the direction of his room, for the first time noticing how well their hands fit.

Seconds later, the door to his thankfully empty chamber closes behind them, shutting the rest of the universe out.

 

The door closes behind them, and for a few seconds she just takes him in. The trousers that should look ridiculous on him but somehow don’t, the richly embroidered doublet that is currently replacing the leather jacket that is as much a part of him as his eyes and ears, the goatee that makes her wonder how it would feel on the sensitive skin on her inner thighs. The thought sends another rush of arousal to her core.

His nostrils flare, and she knows he can smell her arousal. He stares at her as if he wants to devour her, a look of sheer possessiveness on his face she hasn’t seen for far too long.

For a moment she asks herself if she should stop this, if what is happening isn’t mostly driven by the bond, and if she will make things worse if she lets this go any further, but then he groans, and she finds she can’t bring herself to care. She’s already too far gone herself. If need be, he’ll sort out the timelines later. He’ll have something to say about that, but this will be worth it. The only thing she already regrets is that she can’t establish a mental connection, no matter how much she might want to.

She smiles and holds out her hand, and that is all the invitation he needs.

With one step he crosses the distance between them, cradles her face in his hands and once again kisses her, gentler than before but with undiminished passion. For a second he releases her and tugs at his collar, until the restricting garment eventually gives way, then resumes kissing her.

Her hands roam over his back, until she finds a way under his doublet. She drags his shirt out of his trousers, something she has done only once before with this version of him, after that one official date they’d had, and runs her fingers over the taut muscles on his back, drawing circles on his skin. He groans, and she knows that without all those layers of clothes between them she would be able to feel his erection against her belly.

Suddenly just kissing and touching is no longer enough. She stops stroking his back in favour of opening the buttons that hold his doublet together on the front, and shoves it back over his shoulders until it drops on the floor, then sets about opening his shirt, letting her fingers run over his pectoral muscles in the process.

The feeling of her fingers on his skin seems to spur him into action. He tugs at the sleeves, freeing himself from the shirt.  Then he kicks away his shoes and opens the clasp of his trousers, getting finally rid of the garment, until he is standing in front of her gloriously naked.

He looks at her for a moment, then begins to open the laces of her dress, not in a hurry, but determined, like a man on a mission. Eventually corset and multiple layers of skirts glide to the floor, freeing her from the weight and leaving her in nothing but an almost see-through chemise and her stockings. With every breath she takes the fabric of her chemise grazes nipples and legs and reminds her of the fact that she isn’t wearing any knickers. If possible, the thought makes her even wetter.

Once again his nostrils flare, and he positively growls.

 

The Doctor deposits her on the bed he has rarely used in the last couple of weeks, and if he has, he has always woken in cold sweat, almost choking on suppressed screams, remembering all those deaths he couldn’t prevent.

The woman in front of him, however, is the picture of life: skin flushed, pupils dilated, breathing laboured, and with an expectant smile on her lips. He still doesn’t know why exactly she is here with him, why she loves him despite all that blood on his hands, all those deaths he is responsible for. Whatever the reason, she is life, and he needs to feel her. But despite the urge to go as fast as possible, he decides to savour the unexpected gift and take his time.

He kneels between her legs and opens the last few bows that hold her chemise together at the front. The fabric falls apart, revealing creamy skin and nipples that beg to be sucked. He takes the left nipple in his mouth, first circling it with his tongue, then sucking, and fondles her other breast with his hand, slightly tweaking the nipple. She moans, and he grins triumphantly against her skin. Then he starts to kiss every square inch of her skin, his goatee slightly scratching her skin in the process, and he notes her reactions with interest. Slowly his mouth makes its way down her belly, until he settles between her legs and licks her clit.

She bucks against him, and he can barely catch her leg before she kicks him.

“Don’t stop,” she tells him, her hands pressing his head against her folds.

He follows her request, slowly circling her clit with his tongue, then dips a finger into her opening, only to remove it again. She mewls at the loss, and he quickly resumes the action, this time adding a second finger, all the time licking her clit, tasting her juices.

She takes a shuddering breath.

“I want to feel you when I come,” she says, and he realises she is much closer than he thought.

Her words, however, mirror his thoughts, even though his meaning goes in a different direction. The connection he has in mind only works for telepathic beings, and she is just a human. Touching her mind like he wants to could destroy her. Physical closeness will have to be enough.

He abandons her clit and slips his fingers out of her, which results in small sounds of protests from Rose, but then he positions himself and finally enters her, revelling in the feeling of her hot walls around his cock. He bends down to kiss her, then starts to move, slowly at first but quickly growing faster and faster, driven by her breathy moans and the sudden need to feel her come around him. She moves with him, her hands drawing circles on his back, their rhythm matching perfectly.

He slips his hand between their bodies and touches her clit, rubbing it lightly, and she writhes against him. The additional friction is enough to finally bring her to completion. She comes on a scream, and he doesn’t care who might have heard them. He keeps moving inside her, the contractions of her inner walls squeezing his cock until the friction becomes almost unbearable.

“Come, Doctor,” she says gently, and that request is all he needs.

He thrusts into her one last time, then he finally finds release, barely managing not to collapse on top of her. Instead he pulls her into his arms, slowly stroking her soft skin, until her even breathing eventually tells him that she has fallen asleep. He follows her shortly after.

 

Rose wakes up to the unusual feeling of the Doctor sleeping next to her. It had been very rare occasions when he had actually fallen asleep next to her and had still been there when she woke up, instead of doing repairs or reading something in the library. Sometimes he has been watching her during her sleep, but she can count the occasions when he had still been sleeping when she woke up on one hand. He must be extremely exhausted. She is fairly certain that he hasn’t slept properly since he ended the Time War.

She gets up, careful not to disturb him, and wraps herself in one of the Duke of Norfolk’s warm cloaks. During sex, she had almost lost control. She hadn’t anticipated how strong the urge to establish a connection with him would be, especially since he had been broadcasting his emotions wildly. It’s only thanks to a few stray thoughts she had received from him that she had been able to stop herself, and even though the sex has taken the edge off, the urge to re-establish the bond is still there. She is not sure she’ll be able to resist if she is tempted again.

She wanders over to the window and opens it, hoping the cold air will help her clear her thoughts.

 

He wakes up from the first dreamless sleep he has had in decades. His time sense tells him that four hours have passed since he has fallen asleep. The place next to him is empty, but the sheets are still warm.

She is standing in front of the window, one of Norfolk’s cloaks protecting her from the cold seeping in through the opening.

He doesn’t follow the urge to take her back into his arms, to take her back to bed; instead he takes her hand and entwines their fingers, once again marvelling at how perfectly they fit.

For some time they are simply standing next to each other, enjoying each other’s company in silence.

Eventually Rose interrupts the quiet. “Doctor, do you know what building that tower belongs to?”

She points to a small structure standing on what looks like a clearing in the forest maybe half a mile from the castle, barely visible in the moonlight.

He shakes his head. “No idea.”

“You know, I’ve been basically everywhere in this castle, but haven’t found a single trace of alien activity. Do you think it’s possible they are hiding somewhere outside, in that tower for example?”

“Could be,” he acknowledges, still not really interested in the topic.

“Wanna go investigating?” she asks with a wriggle of her fingers and a grin.

He doesn’t particularly want to, but he also doesn’t want to see her go, and he especially doesn’t want to disappoint her again — and where did that notion come from?

“Why not?” he says.

 

What has seemed like a clearing in the forest from a distance is a small lake in reality, with the tower standing on an island barely bigger than the base of the tower. It looks as if it has been abandoned for centuries, the stones and battlements overgrown with moss and ivy.

They find a little rowboat tied to a tree, and board it. The Doctor takes up the oars without a single word, but Rose can hear him grumbling under his breath. She suppresses a smile.

The nearer they come, the more forbidding the tower looks, and Rose gets the feeling she should really be somewhere else, something she recognises as a typical defence mechanism.

“Do you feel that?” she asks.

“Yep. Looks like you were right.”

She grins. “Too bad I couldn’t bring a recorder. You acknowledging that someone else is right about something is nothing short of a wonder.”

“Oi!”

This time she laughs outright, but what really makes her happy is the sparkle she can see in his eyes. He’s not there yet, but it’s a start.

 

At first glance the tower is completely empty, apart from the crumpled remains of the stairs that had once let up to the platform on the top.

Rose turns a few times, taking everything in. “If I were a secret entrance to the dungeon, where would I be?” she asks rhetorically. “Too bad the TARDIS kept the sonic…”

The Doctor follows her glance, then takes the two steps that separate him from the pile of stones and touches the stone on the top. Or rather, he tries to, but his hand vanishes into a force field that keeps up the illusion of a crumbled staircase. He grins at her knowingly.

Rose takes one of the oars from their rowboat and tries to feel the ground under the fake heap of stones, but after the first few thrusts she hits only air.

“There’s a hole in the floor,” she says, then tests the ground again. “No, wait, there are stairs!”

She casts a glance at the Doctor. Whether they’ll go is not in question, only who goes first. “You or I?”

“Rose Tyler, what am I gonna do with you?” he asks, shaking his head at her, but again his eyes are sparkling.

He takes the oar from her to test the ground himself, takes the first two steps down the stairs, for a moment looking as if someone has piled up a heap of stones around him.

“Let’s go meet the neighbours,” he says, holding out his hand.

She takes it, smiling, and together they descend into the unknown depths.

 

They have decided not to light one of the candles they have brought because whoever is down here can see them from further afar than they can see in return. Therefore they have to rely on the oar and the Doctor’s superior sight to warn them of obstacles. For some time they follow a tunnel that seems to have been hewn out of the rock, until it eventually widens more and more.

“We’re almost back under the palace,” the Doctor whispers.

Rose presses his hand in agreement, while trying to figure out if it is actually getting lighter in front of them or if her eyes are deceiving her.

“Do you see that, too?” she asks eventually.

“Yeah. Have done for some time. There is definitely someone in front of us.”

They continue slower than before, even though they can see better with every step they take. Eventually they perceive that the tunnel bends in front of them. They carefully approach the edge, then the Doctor takes a quick look around the bend.

On seeing whatever is behind the bend, he hastily pulls back. He leans heavily against the wall, and his head falls back.

“Doctor?” Rose whispers. “What’s —,” she starts, then interrupts herself. ‘Wrong’ is probably not the best choice of words at the moment. “What’s going on? Is it the Garonas or the Ce’ona’us?”

He doesn’t say anything, just shakes his head.

“Doctor?”

When he still doesn’t react, she casts a glance around the corner herself, but unfortunately this time one of the aliens sitting around a small fire looks up at her.

“Intruder,” the humanoid looking alien shouts, alerting the others.

In for a penny, in for a pound, she thinks, and steps into the space that opens in front of her.

On seeing her, the aliens jump up at once, almost too fast to follow, so they are standing in a line, facing her. Their skin colour ranges from a light rose to dark purple, with every shade in between, and if it weren’t for that, they could have passed as humans.

Rose slowly lifts her empty hands in the universal gesture of peaceful intentions.

“My name is Rose Tyler,” she says.

The one she takes for the oldest takes a step towards her. “My name is Mylet. And you can take down your hands. We know you don’t want to harm us.”

“How do you —” she begins, surprised, only to be interrupted.

“They’re Tyavauneos. They can read your aura,” the Doctor says unexpectedly.

Suddenly he is standing at her side, and once again she is surprised. His voice is hard, but she doesn’t think it’s because the aliens are dangerous, even though they are not those he expected. She briefly looks up at him, but his expression is completely blank. Unsure what his behaviour means, she grazes the back of his hand with hers, reminding him that she’s there, but leaving the decision to him. He hesitates for a second, then takes her hand, pressing it.

She looks at Mylet again. “We’re here because the humans in the castle above have been behaving strange during the last few weeks. They stopped noticing the unusual.”

He nods. “We ran out of supplies a few weeks ago, and the castle was the only place where we could get food for the children.” He gestures behind him, and Rose notices only now that the adults are standing in front of a few children that are huddled together on a makeshift bed. “I’m not proud of stealing food, but with a damaged ship we can’t go anywhere else. We have a device that can modify people’s awareness of certain things, and we used it so they won’t notice us.”

She looks at the Doctor. “So basically a perception filter?”

“Yes. And that would be fine, but the settings are too intense. It is starting to influence the history of this planet. At the moment I can barely feel it, but there’s a strain on the timelines, and it will get stronger.”

“But two days ago you said the timelines were fine.”

“They were. It started yesterday evening.”

“But that was when we… Could it be that we —?”

He shakes his head. “No. It doesn’t have anything to do with us. Something small hasn’t happened that should have or something has happened that shouldn’t have. The effect is still small enough that it’ll right itself over time if we shut down the perception filter now, but big enough that I can feel it.”

She nods, accepting his words at face value, then turns back to Mylet, but before she can say anything, one of the female Tyavauneos steps forward.

“You’re the Doctor,” she says, addressing the Time Lord in question.

“Yes.” He sounds as if he is a delinquent awaiting his verdict.

“Then I must thank you,” she declares, trying to take the hand that is not holding Rose’s.

“No!” the Doctor protests, taking a step back.

“But you saved us!”

The Doctor takes another step back, letting go of Rose’s hand. “No! I was too late. I couldn’t stop the Daleks. Your planet was destroyed. You must know that!”

“We do,” Mylet throws in. “We felt it the moment it happened.”

“But then… Why do you say I saved you?”

“Because you came. Because you fought. And because you delayed them long enough for about two thousand ships with more than a hundred thousand people to get away,” the leader of the small group of Tyavauneos explains.

“But that wasn’t enough! There were millions on your planet!” the Doctor protests.

Mylet looks at him intensely. “Doctor, don’t count just the numbers of those people you couldn’t save. You also need to see all those people you _did_ save. We would all be dead if it wasn’t for you. Your…” He pauses and looks at Rose for a moment.

Don’t say it, she thinks, projecting at Mylet in the hope her wish will be visible in her aura. Aliens throughout the universe have taken them for lovers long before they were, and until yesterday she has always wondered why that was, but telling the Doctor that she is his wife might cause yet another bunch of unexpected problems.

“…companion understands that. You should listen to her,” Mylet continues.

Rose doesn’t know whether his choice of words is a coincidence or if he has indeed read something in her aura, but she decides to steer the conversation away from its current course nonetheless.

“How can we help?” she asks.

She has barely finished the question when the TARDIS materialises in the small cavern.

 

The little space ship that had brought the Tyavauneos to Earth is beyond repair, so the Doctor and Rose simply dismantle those parts that would be dangerous to Earth’s history and transfer them into the TARDIS, including the device that generates the perception filter, and hide everything else in the tunnel, sealing it with a controlled detonation of Nitro 9.

It takes the Doctor some time to locate a Tyavauneos colony in space and time. Even if he doesn’t admit it, he has no idea how the small group of aliens ended up in Tudor England, while the other survivors started to rebuild their society on a formerly uninhabited planet in the 53rd century.

They drop the Tyavauneos off at one of their colonies, and once again Mylet attempts to thank the Doctor, but the Time Lord just cuts him off, turns on his heel and hides in the TARDIS.

Then Mylet turns to Rose. “You’re doing the right thing,” he tells her earnestly. “He’ll understand eventually.”

“I hope so. Goodbye, Mylet. I hope one day we’ll see each other again.”

He smiles. “Maybe we will.”

 

When the TARDIS doors finally close behind Rose, the Doctor absentmindedly enters the dematerialisation sequence, then stares at one of the monitors for some time, but since the monitor is off, she is certain his thoughts are elsewhere.

“I’d thought they were gone, all of them,” he says eventually, turning in her direction.

Rose stays silent, waiting for him to continue, and after some time he does.

“Did you see the sculpture in the main plaza?”

She nods. “It’s breathtaking.”

“It is, but it is nothing more than an echo of the one they had in their capital. They were wonderful artists, the Tyavauneos, their ability to read auras making their art stand out from anything else I’ve ever seen. But then the Time War came, and their planet was destroyed.”

“But you saved them,” she throws in.

“A hundred thousand people. There were millions of them, and I barely managed to save a hundred thousand!” He is getting louder with every word.

She takes a few steps in his direction, until she is standing so near she can touch him.

“Doctor,” she begins gently, reaching for him but stopping herself at the look on his face.

“No! Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it! I know perfectly well what I have done! That I saved the bloody universe!” he shouts, until suddenly the fury is gone, replaced by despair.

“But at what cost? At what cost?” he continues, his voice shaking. “If only I’d had more time. Maybe they’d have come to their senses. Or if I’d started fighting earlier. But you were right. I’m a coward, and so I ran, as far and as fast as I could, until I couldn’t run anymore. This is all my fault.”

This time, she doesn’t hesitate. She takes his arms and shakes him, forcing him to look at her.

“Don’t you dare ever say that again! In that case I’m gonna regenerate you myself. I’ve never heard anything so stupid before. Unless you started the Time War yourself — and I severely doubt that, knowing you — This. Is. Not. Your. Fault.”

“But I killed them! My people, my planet. Every single one of them, even the children. They were innocent, and I killed them!”

“I know.” She takes his hands in hers, then continues, looking him in the eyes, “And I’m sorry.”

“What for?” he asks, confused.

“That you had to make that decision. That you had to do it alone. And that I wasn’t there for you.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Believe me, you really wouldn’t have wanted to be there.”

“No, probably not. But if I’d had the chance, I would have done it nonetheless.”

“But w—”

She silences him by holding a finger against his lips.

“Because I love you. And that is nothing you can question, it’s a fact. I love you. Forever.” And in her mind she pictures the all-encompassing concept of forever he has shown her when they forged the bond, hoping he’ll somehow get an impression of her true meaning.

“Doctor, you had to make a terrible decision, but you can’t let it define your future. It will keep you from being who you are. Yes, there was so much lost, too much. But there’s still so much beauty out there, so much beauty that would have been destroyed if it wasn’t for you. There are so many people who wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t saved them. I’m not saying you should forget the past, but don’t you think you should once again start to live in the here and now?”

She looks him in the eyes for a long moment, then takes a step back and leaves the console room.

 

The Doctor stares at her retreating back, once again wondering how she constantly manages to render him speechless.

Can it be? Is she right? Is it possible for him to live with all those things he has done? To _live_?

She certainly seems to think so.

He strokes the console absentmindedly, and the TARDIS hums, sounding happier than she has ever since he ended the Time War.

“What do you think?” he asks his ship, and suddenly she bombards him with pictures of cities, planets and solar systems, almost too fast even for him to discern, but what they all have in common is that they are teeming with life.

“Do you really think that? That they are still there because of me?” he inquires.

This time the TARDIS responds with a hum that sounds decidedly as if she thinks that he is exceptionally stupid.

“Oi!”

This time he gets the mental equivalent of a shrug, along with a notion of ‘Well, you asked. Finally.’

He has to admit that she is right. Ever since he made the decision to end the Time War he has ignored her most of the time, at first because he had both feared and hoped she would try to talk him out of it, later because he was sure she would chide him for what he has done and dreaded facing her. Apparently he has been wrong.

Oh well, while he’s at it…

“Any ideas what I should do now?”

This time the ship sounds slightly disgusted while she sends him a picture of a shower.

 

Rose takes a long shower in the ensuite of the room that is going to belong to her younger self soon, once again marvelling at the fact that the TARDIS never seems to run out of hot water. When she is finished, she finds not only the clothes she had left behind in exchange for the Tudor dress, but also her dimension cannon and the necessary spare parts, along with a few tools.

“Thank you, old girl,” she says, stroking the wall lightly, then sets about repairing her dimension crossing device, silently thanking the guys in charge of this assignment for making her memorise the schematics. This makes things much easier, and the repair goes quickly. She is running out of time, she can feel it, and as much as she wants to, she knows she can’t stay.

The TARDIS hums, giving her the mental equivalent of a hug.

She looks up from her work for a moment. “Do you think he’s going to be okay now? Well, not really okay, but you know what I mean.”

This time the hum is reassuring, and Rose feels relieved, at least with regard to the Doctor. But even if his wellbeing is not the only thing on her mind, she stops herself from asking the TARDIS how her own adventure is going to end, knowing the ship won’t answer questions regarding her future.

Once again she strokes the coral, then returns to her work.

 

Rose Tyler reappears in his console room more than six hours later, back in the clothes she wore the first time he saw her, the cannon-like device slung over her shoulder.

The Doctor isn’t going to admit it to anyone, but he has spent most of the last few hours alternating between brooding and trying to stop himself from checking on her. He also isn’t going to admit that he has been brooding because he doesn’t want her to go. And most importantly, he isn’t going to admit that he has no idea what he is going to do without her.

He looks up from the console as if he has just noticed her. It’s an act, of course. He can tell to the millisecond when exactly she entered the console room again, but pretending she has interrupted some important maintenance work makes it easier for him to act as if her departure doesn’t affect him at all.

“Right. Where can I drop you off?” he asks, as if he wants to get rid of her as soon as possible.

A smile ghosts over her face, so quickly he almost misses it.

“Where we came from,” she says. “Makes the return easier.”

He nods and marginally adjusts the controls. Minutes later they materialise back on that clearing in the forest where the TARDIS had landed the first time she had brought him here.

“Here we are!”

He opens the door with a flourish, once again pretending he can’t get rid of her soon enough. That doesn’t stop him, however, from following her out of the TARDIS, and he is almost certain that he can see that smile again.

She turns to him, looking at him as if she will never see him again. And if what she has told him is true, she is probably right. She’ll most likely never see this him again.

“I think I’m going to miss the beard,” she says, her hand lightly grazing his once again clean-shaven cheek. “It felt nice.”

“Did it?”

“Yeah.” She grins at him mischievously and licks her lips.

“And where exactly did it feel nice?” he asks, his voice dropping almost an octave at the question.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she replies, her own voice dropping suggestively as well, but he can hear the laughter underneath and knows she’s not going to act on her words.

“I’m gonna miss you, Rose Tyler,” he tells her sincerely, for once dropping the act.

“Then come and find me, Doctor.”

She presses a kiss at his cheek, then steps back to fumble with her dimension jumping device. “I’m gonna miss you, too. Goodbye, Doctor.”

 He stops her just when she is about to press the button. “Really, though. Who are you?”

She gives him a grin, tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth. “Rose Tyler, 21th century shop girl.”

Then she finally presses the button and disappears in a blinding flash of light.

The Doctor stares at the spot for a few long seconds, then turns around, enters the TARDIS and once again sets the navigation controls to randomise. Then he starts the dematerialisations sequence, knowing his time ship will take him to Rose’s younger self when the time is right, and not a second earlier.

And even if he’ll have to hide the memories of their encounters until her older self finds him again, he’s absolutely certain that getting to know her younger self will be worth it.

* * *


End file.
